OCD, otherwise known as obsessive compulsive disorder, can be scary. REALLY scary. People suffering from OCD symptoms can be children, adolescents, and adults of all ages. And when they experience those symptoms at their worst, it can feel like they are “going crazy” or harmful to themselves or others. I am here to show you some of my OCD success stories and prove to you the future is bright.
A Testimonial of an OCD Sufferer’s Anguish:
“When I learned to drive, every bump in the road became a child on a bike. I’d circle around the block to check for blood in the street or a mangled Huffy, sometimes more than once. I looked up police accident reports for months and months, just to make sure there were no unsolved hit and runs.
I knew I couldn’t tell anyone about what I was thinking and feeling. They might think I was dangerous or crazy. Maybe they would call the police or send me to a mental hospital. Maybe both.
Living with such a strange secret was suffocating. I tried my best to hide it, but my parents could tell I was upset. Still, I never told them what I was thinking. Instead, I just swallowed the panic and charged on as well as I could.
I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t socialize. I couldn’t work. I couldn’t take it.
By the time I was almost 30, my intrusive thoughts became so painful, I knew I’d have to either kill myself or seek therapy. I didn’t want to devastate my family, so I decided I’d test out therapy first. It was so intimidating to try and explain the thoughts to someone else.”
OCD and Pure O
This example of someone’s account of their OCD is a version of what clinicians dub Pure O. The Pure O version of OCD preys upon sufferers’ wickedest fears and most esteemed values. The patient above is an empath which leads him to feel terrified he might become dangerous and harm someone.
A piously religious individual is severely disturbed by blasphemous thoughts. A loving new mother worries she will molest her infant daughter while giving her a bath. Another Pure O sufferer becomes terrified they’re “turning” gay. Additionally, people with Pure O may fear they have already engaged in acts of their worst thoughts, even though rationality says otherwise.
Pure O is malignant and feels impossible to divest yourself of, but thankfully very straightforward to treat. A specialized type of cognitive behavioral therapy focused on exposure to one’s frightening thoughts is the paramount therapeutic intervention. Within this seemingly terrifying treatment, in which the sufferer faces their worst fears repeatedly, frequent recurrent exposure to an intrusive thought with the expert guidance of a specially trained therapist eventually lessens its impact. As the brain and body learn that intrusive thoughts aren’t actual threats, the Pure OCD sufferer becomes desensitized to them, ultimately managing their fears and interrupting the cycle of panic and reassurance-seeking that fuels Pure O.
The gentleman described above was lucky he became one of several OCD success stories and found a cognitive behavioral therapist specializing in Pure O therapy. Treatment was scary and grueling, but his therapist believed in him, and he refused to succumb to his fears. His therapist coached him to lean into an intrusive thought when it popped up, advising him to relish the gory details while he sat through the panic to get to the other side.
Many other OCD sufferers of all walks of life with various forms of this relentless disorder have been able to find relief by meeting with a qualified therapist specializing in Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and, more specifically, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) have found significant relief from their OCD symptoms. Many can even find themselves completely free of Pure O or classic OCD symptoms after completing a full course of treatment!
Below are Examples of Some Real OCD Success Stories:
Attorney, 25 Years Old
A 29-year-old attorney obsessed over whether her behaviors were 100% ethical. She would ruminate over past or current mistakes and constantly worried about someone being mad at her for her imperfections. She spent hours every day mentally reviewing mistakes she had made in the last 15 years and tried to reassure herself that those mistakes were okay. But her mind continued to jump from one guilty obsession to another. She tried to magically undo her mistakes through compulsive finger counting, creating a tension in her body, spelling the word PERFECT on her fingers, and nodding until she felt just right. Through 7 weeks of ERP she was able to desensitize to the idea of being imperfect and was able to stop ritualizing. She reported having nothing to talk about her OCD since she felt freed of obsessions and was now able to focus on achieving other life goals that have been neglected by years of obsessing.
Child, 8 Years Old
An 8-year-old girl presented with OCD after being bullied by a new kid in school. She started having intrusive thoughts about her sister drowning in the family swimming pool, grabbing hold of the steering wheel and running someone over, her dog jumping out of the window, stabbing someone with a knife and touching people’s private parts. She started avoiding television, swimming pools, driving in the car, or anything that might trigger these upsetting thoughts. She would compulsively jump over cracks and doorways, repeat actions in sets of 4 and developed simple motor tics like smelling her fingers, scrunching her lips and symmetrical tapping to relieve the physical tension that these obsessions caused her. The girl reported significant improvement in her obsessive thoughts after a short-term course of exposure therapy and response prevention. She was no longer avoiding her perceived stressors and found the images and thoughts to be boring. As her anxiety decreased and habit reversal techniques were employed, her tic-like behavior stopped. Within three and a half months, she became one of our OCD success stories. The girl and her mother reported that she was OCD free.
Nanny, 25 Years Old
A 25-year-old nanny was battling constant intrusive thoughts about going crazy, hearing voices, having paranoia and hurting children. She reported having relatives with mental illness and compulsively searched for reassurance that she was not going to have her life destroyed by declining mental health. She compulsively searched for clues that supported as well as negated her fears. Through short-term ERP treatment, she learned how to stop her mental rituals, desensitize to her thoughts, and ultimately quiet her mind. She terminated treatment and graduated to become one of our OCD success stories, she was feeling very confident in her ability to be non-reactive to her thoughts.
Man, 29 Years Old
One of our OCD success stories was a 29-year-old gentleman presented with fear of swallowing. He reported having a history of OCD including hair twisting, being bothered by turtlenecks, unable to sleep in shirts, being obsessively aware of his own breathing, and a fear of having herpes. His recent fear of swallowing was set off by a feeling that food was stuck in his throat. He was obsessed about the possibility of always having this obsession and never being able to eat normally again. He claimed he couldn’t remember how to eat normally and was having regular panic attacks around food. He lost 10 pounds in a week and relied on protein shakes for sustenance. We built a manageable hierarchy of exposures and effectively challenged his fears around food within a matter of weeks. He reported significant improvement in his fears around choking and was able to resume eating the way he used to.
Camp Director, 23 Years Old
A 23-year-old camp director had a history of OCD since middle school that had gotten progressively worse. He feared catching sexually transmitted diseases through contaminated objects that may have touched his genitals. He would wash his wallet, ATM card, or anything else that had been in contact with possible viruses. He would spend at least an hour and a half in the shower and would spend 45 of those minutes washing his hands and scrubbing under his nails. If he used a shower that his family member used, he would avoid touching the faucet or walls for fear of getting re-contaminated. Through short-term ERP therapy, he was able to reduce his obsessions and compulsions to a subclinical level.
Real Estate Agent, 35 Years Old
Another one of our OCD success stories was a 35-year-old real estate agent with a history of OCD obsessed over the possibility that she could have started a fire if she forgot to blow out candles, if she didn’t unplug her electrical outlets, or if she didn’t shut off her faucet which might cause an electrical fire if the wires got wet. She’d have her doorman check her apartment regularly. She would attach signs around her apartment indicating whether things were turned off or unplugged since she did not trust what her eyes saw or her memory. She showed almost immediate improvement with exposure therapy and response prevention and graduated treatment in 6 sessions.
Software Engineer, 29 Years Old
A 29-year-old software engineer had struggled with OCD since 15 years old. She spent hours per day ruminating on mistakes that she could have made that may bring misfortune to someone else. She obsessed over spelling mistakes and typos, fearing that her misspellings may have bad meaning and could magically attach badness to something or someone. She feared that she must be perfect all the time or she would be responsible for something awful happening. Through repetitive exposure to script writing, tape recording and visual imagery, she was successfully able to habituate to her fears and lead a much more productive and satisfying life.
Social Worker, 26 Years Old
A 26-year-old social worker presented with OCD symptoms that exacerbated after a breakup with her boyfriend. She reported spending endless hours making lists, rewriting the lists and mentally reviewing to-do lists and detailed analyses of her emotional state moment to moment. She claimed that she hoarded lists and would feel panicked if she didn’t write things down. Through short-term ERP, she was able to stop the mental reviewing and list making and reported feeling “as good as new”.
Comedienne, 25 Years Old
A 25-year-old comedienne with a history of OCD reported several obsessive fears including a fear of doing something blasphemous like offending someone, writing and sending a hurtful email, harming someone while driving, and causing a fire by leaving on the stove. She also became hyper aware of her own breathing and feared not breathing correctly. Within a few months’ time, she had a significant reduction in her OCD symptoms and her overall mood. She no longer avoided cooking or driving, did not compulsively check emails before she sent them, and her breathing obsession remitted.
Junior Hedge Fund Analyst, 29 Years Old
A 29-year-old junior hedge fund analyst struggled with obsessive worrying about being gay. He became hyper aware of any physical tension he had in his body when he encountered males or females. He compared how he felt with men vs women, desperately tried to push certain thoughts and feelings away, tried to compensate for homosexual images by being promiscuous with women, etc. His obsessive mind would wreak havoc in social situations and thus, he relied heavily on alcohol to help him socialize. After a course of short-term exposure therapy and response prevention, his obsessions decreased significantly, his reliance on alcohol ceased, and his reaction to the thoughts subsided.
